Good to Eat, Good to Live with: Nomads and Animals in Northern Eurasia and Africa Edited by Florian Stammler Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, Finland & Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge, UK Hiroki Takakura Center for Northeast Asian Studies, Tohoku University, Japan University of Lapland 2020 ii Published by University of Lapland, 2020 Good to Eat, Good to Live with: Nomads and Animals in Northern Eurasia and Africa / edited by Florian Stammler, Hiroki Takakura xiii + 243 p. ; maps, ill. ; 25.7 cm includes bibliographical references Internationally peer-reviewed publication Originally published in 2010 by Center for Northeast Asian Studies, Tohoku Univeristy, Japan as Northeast Asian Study Series, no. 11 ISBN 978-4-901449-67-0 (hard book) Republished as 2nd unaltered edition in 2020 by University of Lapland ISBN 978-952-337-218-4 (pdf.) LCSH: Ethnology—Africa Ethnology—Asia, Central Arctic Peoples—Social life and customs Cattle Reindeer farming Human animal relationships iii contents Acknowledgements Field sites covered in this volume List of contributors Greeting from Siberia Preface 1. Introduction: Living with animals as the socially signifcant other in pastoralism �������������� Florian Stammler and Hiroki Takakura … 1 Reconsidering the border between wild/domestic or hunting/herding 2. Arctic pastoralism in a subsistence continuum: A strategy for diferentiating familiarity with animals �����������������Hiroki Takakura … 21 3. Knowing, training, learning: The importance of reindeer character and temperament for individuals and communities of humans and animals ����������������������Terhi Vuojala-Magga … 43 4. Metaphorical projection and integrated cognitive systems: The Samburu in North Central Kenya ����������� Shinya Konaka … 63 Socio-cultural factors and the subsistence dimension of human-animal relations in pastoralism 5. Establishment of large scale reindeer herding in the European and West Siberian Tundra ������������������� Shiro Sasaki … 77 6. More than meat on the hoof? Social signifcance of reindeer among Finnish Saami in a rationalised pastoralist economy ���… Nuccio Mazzullo … 101 Power of Animal symbolism in its gendered, religious and political dimensions 7. Between catle and Islam: Shifing social and gendered signifcance of catle among the Mbororo pastoralists in Cameroon ������ Tea Virtanen … 123 8. Fluctuations in the value of horses in Mongolia before and afer socialism ���������������������� Tomoko Nakamura … 141 9. ‘Political’ animals of Sakha Yakutia ������� Anna Stammler-Gossman … 153 iv Global signifcance of local animal species for humanity 10. The interrelationship of sociodiversity and biodiversity: Experiences from a post-Soviet Siberian village �������� Leo Granberg … 179 11. The origin and genetic diversity of native Yakutian catle as revealed by DNA-marker analysis ������������������� Juha Kantanen … 195 12. The symbiotic human animal relationship: An artistic investigation of Yakutian catle ������������ Anu Osva … 203 Conclusion: comparison from the Arctic 13. Animal-diversity and its social signifcance among Arctic pastoralists ���Florian Stammler … 215 v acknowledgements This publication benefted in various forms from the support of the BOREAS Euro- cores Program of the European Science Foundation (ESF), the Academy of Finland, and Arctic Centre of University Lapland. We also express our sincere gratitude to the Japanese Society of the Promotion of Science (JSPS), the Siberian Research Project programmed by Research Institute of Humanity and Nature (RIHN, Japan), and Center for Northeast Asian Studies of Tohoku University. vi Field sites covered in this volume vii list of contributors *editors of this volume Granberg, Leo is a professor of rural studies in social sciences at the University of Helsinki, Department of Social Psychology and Ruralia Institute. He is sociologist and has studied social change in rural areas in Finland, eastern Europe, and Russia. His focus since 2004 has been the study of endangered Yakutian Catle and three northern Siberian villages where these catle have survived. He has co-published, among others, the following books: Leo Granberg, Katriina Soini & Juha Kantanen (eds. 2009), Sakha Ynaga. Cattle of the Yakuts. Finnish Academy of Science and Leters. Maarit Heinonen, Jouko Nikula, Inna Kopoteva & Leo Granberg (eds. 2007), Reflecting Transformation in Post-socialist Rural Areas. Cam­‑ bridge Scholars Publishing. Leo Granberg, Imre Kovách & Hilary Tovey (2001), Europe’s Green Ring. Ashgate. e-mail leo.granberg(at)helsinki.f Kantanen, Juha is a Head of the Farm Animal Section of the Nordic Genetic Resource Cen- tre (NordGen) and a principal researcher in animal genetics at Agrifood Research, Finland (MTT). His studies at MTT have focused on molecular genetic diversity in domesticated animals, especially in domestic catle and sheep, their domestication history, current genetic diversity, and conservation of their genetic resources. He has participated in two multidisci- plinary studies on the genetic, socio-cultural, and economic valuation of endangered native farm animal breeds, such as Yakutian Catle. He has coordinated the Finnish national con- servation action plan for animal genetic resources and is currently working at NordGen to promote gene resource conservation in Nordic countries. Email juha.kantanen(at)nordgen. org or juha.kantanen(at)mtt.fi, web http://www.nordgen.org/index.php/en/content/view/ full/2/ or www.mt.f/english Konaka, Shinya is a Japanese scholar of African studies and anthropology. He has been conducting feld research among East African pastoralists since 1990, primarily among the Samburu pastoralists in north central Kenya. His main concern is the globalization of Afri- can societies as seen through the investigation of micro-level phenomena. His ethnography on the Samburu won the Okita Memorial Prize for International Development Research. He is an associate professor at the Faculty of International Relations, University of Shizuoka, as well as a researcher of Center for Global Studies, Graduate School of International Rela- tions, University of Shizuoka (Japan). Email konaka(at)u-shizuoka-ken.ac.jp, web http:// africa.u-shizuoka-ken.ac.jp/ Mazzullo, Nuccio is a researcher at Leibniz-Institut für Länderkunde in Leipzig, Germany, and a research fellow of the Anthropology research team at the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, in Rovaniemi. He has studied at the University of Manchester, UK, where he com- pleted his Ph.D. in social anthropology. His topical interests include reindeer herding, hunt- ing and gathering, human-environment relationships, environmental politics, and indige- nous rights. Dr. Mazzullo’s other interests related to circumpolar peoples are landscape and perception, learning and skills, handicraft and narratives, and anthropology. His recent viii publications include an article co-authored with Tim Ingold, Being Along: Place, Time and Movement among Sámi People (2008), in Mobility and Place: Enacting European Peripher­‑ ies, (eds) J.O. Bærenholdt and B. Granås, Ashgate, and (2009) Sápmi: A symbolic re-appro- priation of Lapland as Saamiland, in Máttut Máddagat. The Roots of Saami Ethnicities, Societies and Spaces/Places, T. Äikäs (ed.), Publication of Giellagas Institute, University of Oulu. E-mail: N_Mazzullo(at)if-leipzig.de Nakamura, Tomoko is a social anthropologist who has focused on social change in Mongo- lia and Western China. She is most familiar with China’s western development strategy and has travelled around the Heihe river basin for her feldwork. Dr. Nakamura is also inter- ested in the relationship between horses and pastoral people in Mongolia, which is refected in her publications on ecological immigration, the culture of horses in Mongolian pastoral society, and the history of Chinese frontier areas. Dr. Nakamura is a post-doctoral researcher at cneas and a part-time lecturer at Tokyo Gakugei University and Ibaraki Christian University. E-mail fwjh1030(at)nify.com Osva, Anu (Licentiate of Science [Agriculture and Forestry]) is a Finnish artist with scien- tifc background in animal breeding (i.e. genomics, quantitative genetics and mathematics). She worked ten years as a researcher in this feld, but chose to pursue an artistic career in 1990. In 1999 she began to combine scientific thinking and observations into her artistic work. In her paintings layers of genetic information are mixed with random layers of oil colors. These layers of color may contain natural, historical or cultural observations, or they may be related to our belief systems. One of Ms. Osva’s recent works is a project entitled Yakutian catle – A Research Expedition to Siberia in 2000’s. She participated in a feld trip to North-East Siberia together with a research team from Helsinki University. http://www. pp.htv.f/aosva/ Sasaki, Shiro is a professor at the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka. He received his Ph.D. in cultural anthropology at the University of Tokyo in 1989. Since 1984 he has carried out feld studies among the Saami in northern Finland, Evenks in northern China, Nenets in the Nenets Autonomous District, Evens in northern Yakutia (Republic of Sakha), and indig- enous minorities (Nanai, Ul’chi, Udehe, and Nivkh) in the Russian Far East. His main research themes are concerned with the social history of the people of the Amur River basin in the 17th-20th centuries and the cultural problems facing reindeer-herders and hunter- gatherers in Siberia during the Post Soviet transformation.